


Structures of Trust

by Aozi



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes does too but isn't too guilt-ridden about anything, Bucky Barnes's Backpack, Cliche Storm, Dark, Dark!Steve Rogers - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, M/M, Mentions of Sexual Assault, Night Terrors, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Post-CACW, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Has Issues, all the winter soldier tags, heed the warnings, holy shit, mentions of torture, no Bucky's not okay, nobody is okay, roaring rampage of revenge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-17
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-18 19:08:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5939905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aozi/pseuds/Aozi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Buchanan Barnes forgets everything.  Again.</p><p>Cliche, I know.  Bad shit happens to not-quite-good but definitely-not-bad people but they're trying their best, and we all know I'm talking about Buck here.  Jeez, the poor bastard, even after everything that's happened he keeps losing more.  Steve Rogers goes into semi-retirement?  Crossbones miraculously survives Civil War and makes a further nuisance of himself.</p><p>Helen Cho, Jane Foster, T'Challa, Sam Wilson and other secondary characters I adore shows up.  A lot.  Wanda and The Vision are very confused but game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR READING. D: I had a little melt down when I saw the kudos, comments, subscriptions and bookmark. Each of you are very precious to me. I mean Captain America fandom is imploding in on itself it seems, there are so many fanfics being written and posted so I'm shocked I've got comments at all.

He woke with a violent start and found himself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, the hard beats of his heart echoing the fading gunshots in his dream-addled brain. Huh, it was a too-bright white, he thought blinking slowly, his eyes burning with not enough sleep. The kind that screamed cheap paint and even cheaper application.

The air was cool, making the pulse threading his neck, at his temple, even against the scratchy bedspread that amplified the beat in his thumb, seem to throb hotly.

His vision started to sparkle and he realized he'd stopped breathing. He gasped then clenched his teeth, nostrils flaring in protest. _Slow. Deep._ In through the nostrils down to his stomach, expand his diaphragm. _Out, now. Slow. Repeat._ Sweat cooled in a tacky film across his skin, making the hair stick to the back of his neck. It was a strange sensation, like wet plastic bags. The discomfort coalesced into one thought: His hair bun was too tight.

It pulled at his scalp, making his head prickle painfully. He pulled the tie off and sighed in relief at the immediate release of pressure. The bad news was that action sent the blood rushing back into once restricted veins making him feel as if thousands of insects were creeping over his scalp.

Closing his eyes, he clawed through the soft mess, baiting time. When he no longer felt like spun glass he focused on _where_ and _how_. The resultant jagged mess of sight, sound, taste and touch that went too deep, became too sharp or too blurry or something else, which made no more sense than his...his... _OHholyshit_...left arm at the moment.

He looked away, the pulsing in his head suddenly tried to eat his eyeballs and his vision started to fade. He launched upright only to end up in an awkwardly pain-filled curl as the taut muscles in his back and legs refused to unravel.

_Why was he sore? What had he been doing?_

He stayed huddled, listening to traffic noises rise and fall. He just needed to...impose order, to organize, yes, categorize and itemize and label. A vehicle backfired and he flinched-- _fuckshit_ \--screaming internally when his neck muscles yanked back. He clenched his fists, curled tighter, kicked out, anything to distract his body from the cramp. His vertebra cracked audibly.

Different sounds seeped into his awareness and enforced habit took over; he felt like a passenger in his own body as he started sifting through the sensory overload. Sound is important, it can reveal so much. He chose one, a clear bell, jingling randomly; something like a wind chime, he thought, ceramic and steel. He knows how to isolate certain audio cues, listening as it bounced off of various materials-- _types; asphalt is not the same as cement: not the same as an armor piercing round going through tanks as it would sound through a mass market civilian vehicle_ \--made him take note; he was in a sizable city.

An emergency siren wailed louder as the vehicle came closer until it seemed to go through the building only to fade quickly away again. It was not a common American pattern. _Wait, what?_

He watched the lurid lights jump and skip around the room, past walls bleeding with neon washes. The light was bright and varied enough that several large sources of it must be very close by. A very busy section of the city, then. Something with enough history to have lots of neon on old brick buildings. _THINK._

Was he dead? Was that him then, the hollow wailing thing deep, deep in his mind? Hn, even death was a disappointment. Not surprising, nearly everything was these days. Except for Sam Wilson and a pretty little red spider.

 _The hell is Sam Wilson and a spider?_ His stomach grumbled, unimpressed. _Metallic blades, each curved piece flaring in tight, organic formation, swift and graceful; deadly, a light, rounded body with sly green eyes and blazing hair._

He moaned, clutching his head. That simple movement made him uncomfortably aware of where the metal joined with his flesh. Why does death have to be confusing too? Fuck it.

_...blazing? Fiery?_

He found the edge of the bed and stared down at the faded, bluish-tan tiled floor. _Linoleum,_ his asinine brain supplied helpfully. _Old, but not as old as he was. Peeling and cracking into flakes; not a danger._ Right. Useful. There were no carpets, only an area rug cut from a much bigger piece judging by its half Duct taped state. It wasn't big enough to protect anything and was a revolting grayish-bluish-brown.

Oh, look he's an interior designer now. _Inter--_

He looked out the window instead, making out the neighboring brick-faced building across the street through the thin, narrow plastic striping horizontally across the entire thing. It was automatic, the easy calculations for an escape route. From the relative position of that building's windows and the slant of the sunlight coming through-- _This room was facing Westwards,_ he judged before the light started fading in earnest. _The opposite building is at least three stories taller than this one; pointless observation._ \--and if he had to jump he'd be able to make it through that building's pleasantly large windows with a running start.

_Out of the corner of his eyes he was mesmerized by the liquid sheen of the metal, it seemed to melt and slip as the light changed._

One end of the bed was up against a bare wall with a desk and a compact dresser of undetermined pedigree on the other side of the room. They looked solid was his final verdict; good to slam a body against, several times, even. His only company were dust bunnies and a bare bulb hanging in the middle of the ceiling. It was off, but the neon streaming through the window compensated for it.

Mouth watering fragrances of cooked meat wafted through the room mixed with the stink of raw sewage and sun-heated garbage. The combination was enough to make him want to dry heave. He swallowed hard, breathing discreetly through his mouth and pushed the smell from his conscious mind.

Only after settling his surrounding was he able to finally acknowledge the other presence in the room.

The man had walked in on almost silent feet when he'd turned to look out the window. The rrasp-slap sound of his house slippers had announced him, as if in warning. He'd followed the odd sound from somewhere...in the cardinal Northeast direction.

Wheat colored hair _just long enough to be a handicap_ and blue eyes, taller than him but not appreciably; details, detail, detail. He adjusted his own position for optimal take down. Mid-twenties, maybe, until he looked into blue, blue eyes. He looked away immediately and even though he knew his own face was impassive, from somewhere in his mind someone said, _”Poker face.”_ A woman's voice suddenly rang out in a blaring chorus but behind it was another, accented voice, _You will be the fist of Hydra; decisive!_ “Or a diamond-tipped scalpel,” murmured a man who looked eerily like an older version of the one in the doorway. _”Do not think, do not feel. Do not let sentiment fester.”_

The voice could have also been whispering in the other man's head. Such an achingly familiar face-- _leaner, narrower face, nose large and protruding_ \--startlingly symmetrical-- _even in the...before?_ \--but now with a jawline where a few week's worth of beard growth still couldn't hide it. Only a slight bump on the patrician profile lent any kind of flaw. No, no, it only served to highlight how ridiculously perfect the rest of man was. _The nose, his eyes, those never changed. His lips..._

They stared at each other, he was aware and surprised by how comfortable the silence between them were. Perversely the instant the thought formed he became suspicious and barely caught his own startled reaction when the man spoke.

"Are you hungry?"

His stomach started a demolition project in reply now that someone was paying proper attention. "Y-Yes."

"What would you like? We were gifted with a lot of steamed rice.”

Dark? Somber? The man sounded...sad. Resigned?

“Who are you?” He asked instead, not a thought to his own identity, too crowded with the memories of this man.

_Bony joints digging into uncomfortable places on a narrow bed, huddling against the cold. The almost violent urge to kiss long, long lashes when he can't stop himself from staring down at the bowed but unbeaten head. Handkerchiefs stuffed around bloody noses and loose teeth._

“You don--” Something too quick, too brutal, twisted the man's features. He nodded slowly and said, “Right, okay.”

_Reassurance. But for who?_

"My name is Steven Grant Rogers. Steve, if you like.”

He frowned then shook his head abruptly surprising the man into jerking a step back. “Steve--Stevie was a good foot shorter, with a curved spine.”

He doesn't question this knowledge. It never occurred to him to do so.

The words barely left his mouth when he found himself staring at the empty wall across the hall. Oh. He should have been more _pro-active_ upon waking. But he doesn't feel endangered. Though, to be honest, he doesn't trust his body to work well enough to go wandering. He stared out the window again, acutely aware the man was still there, on the other side of the wall; he could hear the slow, measured breathing. Calming exercises, he identified, similar to his own.

The sky was gilded a graying-blue pewter in the West, in the darkening East it was taking on a purplish blue cast he thought looked sickeningly like a flesh contusion. There were no clouds except for wisps of grayish white lazily spreading through the twilight world. 

Tall buildings made the the deep crevasses of the streets darken quickly while spindly shadows clawed Eastwards and the glowing, flickering signs gleamed along vehicles as they rushed to their destinations. Even this high up, their headlights were helpfully reflected across glass shop fronts and splashed into the small room.

The scene below was familiar in a way that was almost uniform. A major metropolis always had at least one area where neon signs advertised, jostling for premium real estate on the sides of buildings, blinking over rooftops and hung jumbled across the width of the street.

 _Good, recognition of places is improvement._ He stared at what slices of a busy intersection he could see, and the name of the street came easily to mind. He was in Seoul, capital city of South Korea, where between twinkling high rises the layered, curved roof lines scaled with tiles of older structures can be seen. Tagging along with the knowledge came some other words: Amnesia. Usually caused by injury to the hippo campus region of the brain.

Next question: _How?_ Entire lightning storms of questions and circumstantial evidences electrified his brain. Everything went off like the 4th of July. Whoa, abort, bad thoughts, _bad_ thoughts!

He laughed to himself as his predicament suddenly made sense. Humiliating, violating and yes, he admitted, _not_ as terrified as he knew he should be with his inability to be in any kind of control. But whatever happened his brain decided the self couldn't deal with it and hid it somewhere. Symptoms of trauma. _Systematic._

So this Steven Grant Rogers could somehow be the frail one he was remembering.

He turned around to wait for this Steve. Lots of fidgeting noises, ThisSteve seemed to intentionally make them as if to say, "It's me, don't be alarmed. It's just ThisSteve."

A tray of steaming food appeared first and his stomach growled in annoyance at being ignored for so long. He continued ignoring it and wondered if ThisSteve was going to join him. But he was so hungry, and he immediately kicked his mental ass for being ungrateful.

Oh, one of the trays was a table. He reached for it, getting a winsome smile in return, and opened it so ThisSteve-- _thishurtsthishurthishurts_ \--could put the food down. There was an array of eating utensils along side the dishes. _Always thoughtful of others, never of yourself, damn you Steve, big and small._

There was a large rice cooker which ThisSteve plugged in and various dishes, piled high with food. ThisSteve said, “Dig in.”

"Are you joining me?" He asked.

“No, a doc--” ThisSteve shook his head gently, brows slanting kindly, “--Helen Cho is a friend whom I'm leaving to pick up. She's someone who might be able to help you."

"Ah," he sighed with anticipation for the food, suddenly no longer interested in the conversation. He picked up a pair of tapered sticks ( _Chopsticks? Chopsticks._ ) and ThisSteve scooped white, fluffy, steaming stuff into a deep bowl. "Thanks."

ThisSteve rose from his crouch and turned in one elegantly spare move. He unconsciously interpreted it as an attack and jerked back, away, completely forgetting the bowls of food in his hands. If his reflex hadn't stiffened his legs, his knees would have buckled against the edge of the bed and he'd probably be wearing a coating of food to make a mortifying episode deliciously more memorable.

ThisSteve froze, expression nearly flat except for slightly elevated brows. ThisSteve opened his mouth but he beat him to it with a shaky, "Me? My name? J-James, uh--"

“Buchanan Barnes,” ThisSteve replied, eyes widening in confusion then blinking as realization filtered between them. "You are James Buchanan Barnes."

The panic threatening to cut off his air supply subsided and he started to shake. “I-I don't know, don't--”

“Shhh,” ThisSteve said, swiftly removing the food from him then kneeling face to face, repeating, “Shhh. No pressure.”

“I'm J-James,” he pressed on, determined to show ThisSteve that he needn't worry. "Thank you for..." What? Finding him? Saving his life probably? James doubted an old building like this had convenient elevators. So add dragging his dead weight up several flights of stairs and feeding him? "...uh, everything." He cleared his throat self-consciously.

ThisSteve continued to look at him with those eyes. Then, when James was beginning to think he'd done something wrong, ThisSteve said, "If you turn the lock to the left, the door will automatically lock after you. But, you can stay as long as you like. Be careful of the hot pipes in the shower. Turn the cold on all the way, then turn the hot a quarter of the way. We have unlimited hot water."

ThisSteve winked and startled, James tried to gather what's left of his wits again, but only managed another strangled, "Thank you." before slumping back against the mattress in an embarrassed, confused puddle.

Of course the damned bed squeaks, he thought, not having noticed it earlier, probably having tossed it in the irrelevant section. The squeaks and creaks were loud, echoing in the room.

ThisSteve got up, hands where James could see them relaxed at all times, and was about to leave when James blurted, "Aren't you afraid?"

He turned around and stared at James, this time with positive emotions on his face. Amusement ( _fondness?_ ) James tentatively identified. "Of you? No, not gonna start now. And if you think there's something worth stealing in here, you're welcomed to it."

And he left.


	2. Chapter 2

James wandered the apartment, finding out that it was located above a specialty Chinese restaurant, which explained both smells earlier. Even this late at night the scent of dough, meats, and other ingredients being steamed, broiled and fried filled the air. The apartment was a corner one and the common room had two walls of windows.

Fishbowl.

He doesn't know how long he stood there staring into the endless sea of buildings.

The ceiling dripped with origami. Some fluttered, others twisted seeming to be built for that movement, and the rest swayed gently in the breeze coming through two open windows. The thin, colorful paper animals, plants and everyday objects were strung unevenly and seemed as ephemeral as his tenuous hold on reality. The strings holding them up were all but invisible against the sparkling blackness of the city beyond.

In the middle of the room was a low-set table with squares of papers stacked neatly by color with a large, half finished, perfectly creased red and black bird of prey. The pattern on the paper imitated the bird's plumage lending evidence.

 _Well, know he was able to identify tiny dinosaurs._ He also recognized his own handiwork. _Dexterity and pressure exercises for his le--_

He walked into another bedroom then a bath room and came back out to the kitchen which was open to the fishbowl. They were all just as bare as the bedroom James woke up in. The other bedroom was only slightly larger and had the same basic furniture in it except for a large, white crane presiding over the space from its perch on the dresser. A thin layer of dust was on everything.

 _Was ThisSteve and he--_ he shied away from the almost memory-thought.

Even with the origami, there was nothing personal that said who lived here, their jobs or relationship status, or if they even had any family.

All the walls were a very forgettable matte white and the flooring was the same linoleum tile that was in his room. Only the fishbowl had carpeting, or what passed for it. Truly disturbing to know ThisSteve could live with it. James found a knapsack in a cardboard box supported by a Duct taped cracked plastic tub next to the bedroom door.

The knapsack was vaguely familiar until James picked it up and noted the careful stitching on the strap. _Mine._ James knew how to sew from a very early age because... _because..?_ Blank, blank, maybe...no, still, blank. Frustrated, James emptied the bag and reorganized, mostly to keep his hands from shaking.

He found a tooth brush rubber banded to a tube of toothpaste which he tossed on top of the clean set of clothes. Despite ThisSteve's directions James still managed to scald his chest and a part of his neck before getting the right mix. James was very good at keeping his showers short and efficient. _Ingrained habits reinforced by--_ Stop.

Something really bad must have happened to him. The _things_ he was willing to do to get by was horrifying, but he felt safe here. Anchored. So even this late at night he pushed the table into the unused room then slipped on ballet shoes he found carefully wrapped.

The fishbowl was a decent size for an inner city apartment.

James stretched, letting muscle memory pull him through, not working up to a sweat but just enough so he wouldn't injure himself. When he felt ready he settled then carefully rose to the ball of his feet. He's extremely rusty but this, this he remembered. He's always remembered and he used the wall, imagining it to be a barre.

The flowing movements were hypnotic. He's not sure what they're called or what exactly he's doing but that's alright. Time slipped by, unnoticed and unconcerned by his engrossed mind as it automatically corrected his positions, his posture, the flow of his arms. The feel of his muscles slowly expanding and contracting gradually grounded him, giving him the control he desperately was searching for.

Control. James liked to control the world around him. He learned to sew at an early age because he liked to control how the world saw him. It was why he learned how to do a good many things. James was in control right now and he held on as he spun tightly across the limited space.

\-----

James laid in the darkness after tiredly dragging his sweat-soaked ass into another shower. He was always tired these days. He could remember some where...some times...in the past, lying against the red dirt all night; the previous day and that night too with the taste of vaguely coppery grit in his mouth as he patiently scanned the parameter through the telescope, clutching--

James physically turned his back against the insufficiently blocked window as if he could do the same to the bits and pieces of what he's remembering. So, maybe he did several bad things over a very long period of time but re-living it over and over wasn't going to change anything. He was just thankful he couldn't remember whatever he'd woke up from.

He woke up again and carefully shook his head to dislodge the fuzz that's taken up residence in it and his mouth. His internal clock said five in the morning. He hadn't moved from the position he'd ended up falling asleep in, pressed against the wall, under the bed, facing the door. 

The air flow was disturbed. James was no longer alone in the apartment. He couldn't immediately understand why then slowly the soft clack-clackclackclack-clack of a keyboard filtered through. Someone was in the apartment. The keyboards had to be from a laptop since James hadn't found any electronic equipment of any kind, not even a stereo or an alarm clock yesterday.

James felt nothing at that revelation that someone was in the apartment. Shouldn't he feel something? Why did he stay? Should James go out and get this over with? If they mean to harm him he's...vulnerable now. James couldn't get his muscles to obey and to his horror, his eyes started to swim and itch. What the hell?

Tears! Was he actually crying? The tears fell as that thought rattled around his brain, feeling like ice slicing down the side of his face. James viciously swiped at it, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes with little regard to what it could do to his vision. Maybe if he rubbed hard enough. Maybe.

James turned with a wince on to his back and sprawled out, staring at the bottom of the bed as the battle of whether or not to move waged in his head. His entire face burned with strange feelings.

The room became less bright from the chaotic, electric lights. The gray of morning took over as the sun rose and he turned to watch as the shadows lifted.

Knocks decided his next course of action. Rolling stiffly out from underneath the bed he did a few stretches and opened the door. ThisSteve _was_ taller James noted. It pricked at his pride, surprising him. _I used to be taller, bigger than you._

Blue shot through with icy slivers James decided on ThisSteve's eye color in that instant. He was consciously forcing himself not to look at his lips and swiftly gave his mental ass another kick. Steve had said something, damn it!

"Would you like breakfast now? Or after you've showered?"

"I showered last night," James said just as ThisSteve was about to speak again. They stared at each other for a few more seconds, then James blurted, "Sorry."

"For?" Tousled, sun-tipped hair drifted slightly as those eyes locked onto his.

James wanted to look away, maybe sock those perfect teeth in then run. He settled for staring at ThisSteve's eyebrows. They were thick, slashed over his eyes in a slight arch and James grimaced inwardly, feeling slightly creeped out with himself.

"This," James said, waving a hand around and in his mind he only succeeded in looking psychotic.

ThisSteve seemed to understand as he followed James' flapping with a gentle, "Aah." Then those eyes fell on his face again, they crinkled slightly at the outer corners and James felt hollowed out. "Food's in the living room."

James watched him leave. The muscles beneath his shirt worked and flexed, igniting a blaze somewhere below his navel. James should be happy that at least one part of him was not dead but James felt nothing regarding it. It could develop into a raging bonfire and James was oddly sure he'd still be just a spectator in his own body.

He had questions but wasn't sure of how or even where to start, maybe it's the fact that ThisSteve hadn't asked anything in return. This was going to get irritating fast if all they end up doing was trade silent looks and blank expressions. ThisSteve deserved answers and so did James, but James doesn't want to break the easy silence between them. There seemed to be no rush.

They sat on a pair of thick pillows, facing each other on a low table that was covered in plates of food. ThisSteve had everything from sandwiches, pies, breads, eggs and fruit to thick stews. There were several different drinks. James wasn't sure where to look first.

"Do you normally eat all of this by yourself?" James asked.

"Yes," ThisSteve replied and a corner of his lips kicked up a fraction. James doesn't stare at it. Well, James doesn't stare directly at it, since his eyes were fixed at a point just above the other man's right shoulder. "I wasn't sure what you'd like so I bought or made everything I could think of."

"This is good." James meant it. "Thank you."

ThisSteve gave him another one of his remote looks and James finally met it. He doesn't look away. "Do you remember anything?"

"You're de--” James clamped his teeth shut with an audible snap, blinking hard.

"I was, yes." ThisSteve unfolded a fuzzy piece of paper and handed it over to him.

After a moment he forced himself to take it. It was a newspaper headline, proclaiming Captain America was alive, found encased in ice and--

He dropped it, yanking his hand back as if it had bit him, shaking his head, trying to disguise that his body was shaking. "N-No."

“It's me, Bu--James.”

James couldn't understand the fascination most people had with accidents or bad news. It's as if they were excited to hear it, especially when it's on the other side of the world or road from their own personal lives. It came in handy, create a diversion, cause an uproar then leave. Is this what it felt like to be so drawn in? Not able to turn away?

James thought of a conversation -- memory? -- that he had with someone important. _To me? To whom?_

"Mission report."

The voice had the timbre of someone older, used to being in control. _Why was that usage important?_

James stared at ThisSteve, an older face suddenly sliding into place, and something must have shown when ThisSteve said, “James, James, it's okay. It's okay. You're safe, no one knows we're here--”

“Doctor Cho,” he interrupted.

ThisSteve nodded in agreement, “Yes, she knows but she's on our side. She couldn't get away yesterday and would like to see you today. Would that be okay?”

The older man's voice was never harried before. It never revealed anger or frustration like so many before him. It was tense though, clearly uncomfortable as it demanded, “Mission report, now.”

James doesn't associate security or choice with that voice or that face, but ThisSteve was asking him for his input. Giving him a choice. Was it an illusion? Just so he wouldn't cause anymore trouble?

James nodded, asking, "Doctor Cho will fix me?" In a horrified corner of his mind that was gibbering stupidly, James had enough control to analyze his own morbid curiosity with this condition he obviously has. Was this how those who slowed down in traffic to gawk at deadly accidents felt?

ThisSteve watched him but doesn't coddle, and he replied with a final, "No."

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://investigator-mutsuki.tumblr.com)


End file.
